Mocha soap

Seems a while since I made any soap, and yet I have still not used any I have made as the first batch is still curing. It will be 4 weeks of curing at the end of this week however, and I think it is nearly ready! Exciting! But to keep me amused in the meantime, I quite fancied trying a coffee based soap.  Here is the ingredient list which I used:

• 306g olive (pomace)
• 306g coconut oil
• 72g avocado oil
• 126g rice bran oil
• 90g shea butter
• 127g lye
• 254g cold brewed coffee

• 2 tsp white Kaolin clay
• 3 tsp white TiO2 powder
• 2 tsp cocoa powder
• 2 tbsp used coffee grounds

I have not used a clay before so thought I would give it a go - have no idea how much I should have put in, so I must confess that I guessed!  I wanted to make a dark soap which represented the coffee but with a lighter swirl in it, hence the cocoa powder addition for the darker colour, and the whites for the lighter.  

The chilled brewed strong coffee was used as water with the lye being added to that. It did smell a little burnt or just odd when lye was added but hopefully that won’t come across in the soap. The lye solution was dark, but I thought once added to the oils that it might end up a caramel colour so I decided to darken it with cocoa powder. This also adds a nice twist of making it a mocha soap!

At light trace, I removed a portion of soap out into separate container (around a cup/250ml) and to this the clay and titanium dioxide was added to lighten the soap (soap was brownish) - did not make white but lightened into a lightish cream colour. The cocoa powder was added to the larger remaining batch of soap to make it a darker brown, and I mixed in the used coffee grounds into this for a little texture!

One both were ready I poured the darker soap into soap a lined loaf mould, then poured the lighter colour soap in from a height (so it would sink) and mixed a little with skewer in to attempt a swirl effect (see pic above).